Prose Pt 2

It is so godamn easy to ignore everything outside my job, commute and home. At home I tell myself, my job doesn't really define me. At work I tell myself, my small apartment does not define me. It is too modest, I was never that. And I remind myself that these dualities carry no bearing on reality.

...so stagnant, is it dead? Or is it festering with life?

So I define myself on a special set of prejudices, that keep me smirking. She doesn't define me. And I doubt she would try. She is plied by the finest diversions. I am muttering these things out loud to myself. To myself because no one is listening.
And there are plenty of people around.
In fact, I think, there are too many people here.

They are a patchwork of gorged bellies and soft faces. And so horribly pink. They are as uninterested in me as I am in them. But they all love her; for the way she takes you breathlessly...screaming. So effortlessly, I wonder if she is aware how she effects them.

A kiss blown across the room misses its target.

Forget it, I tell myself, forget her.
Let the whole scene go.
Leave the party!

So I crack open a pack of smokes and walk out behind the house. There are five of her friends out back. As I approach they stop braying their inane nonsense, to walk quickly past me inside. Single file, all tight-lipped and fish-eyed. Who knew girls with such nice legs could make such ugly faces.

Then she comes out asking for a lighter. Remember her? She's got nice legs too. And loves to show them off.
She smiles wide batting her eyes and rubbing her thighs. I tell her, "I think we should split up."

"But I never..." she starts, so I stiffle her.

"I know. But I'm worried I never will."

"I'll move out tomorrow."

Prose Pt 1

At least she keeps the place clean. And looks so pretty preening herself, for me. And sometimes even by artificial means that go wasted on me. My taste was never so pervasive. I tell her I need that unbearable reality. That beauty requires no paraphernalia. And I've told her before, but I still suspect she doesn't believe me.

She looks down on me from her stool scowling as she brushes her perfect hair. She is still angry that I set her, very expensive, hair extensions on fire and then tried to flush them down the toilet.

She says, "You ought to think more of how people define you. You reject the most natural vanities out of some absurd spite. Yours is the greater depravity in nonsense...and pretense against any obvious social cadence. And from you, who scowls presumption with the gumption of pure justice."

I tell her the make-up that she just finished painting on makes her look like a whore--then we make love. Later, as she rest her head in my lap, she plays with my hair and chest and pressed her other hand under my thighs. The while she's been staring intently at me, cooing intamately something I don't bother to hear.

Looking at the oak tree out the window as the sun is setting I speak, "I might not go to that party tonight. No. I am in the mood for wine and the brooding seclusion of the waterfront."

"But everyone is going to be there!" She persisted.

Mendocino Ave

The pavement is damp but it is not raining. I pass a lit cigarette between my fingers, dropping ashes. The air thickens with springtime. It is difficult to move.

My beer is cold in my hand and the sun is so nice, I don't hear the crescendo-ing drone next to me. He does not distract me from the girls passing by; darkly dressed, and looking like shadows against the green horizon. They are like a younger variation of the three drinking wine, sitting two tables down. The trees here remind me of a room I used to rent.

There is a mound of manure on the south side of town that is 30 yards tall and can be smelled for miles.

I turn to my new friend to catch him spitting in the face of a psychology student as he shouts louder, gesticulating wildly between a textbook and his head.

"No kraut can read my thoughts!"

He returned my gaze as I replied, "...smells like shit, man."

So We Dance

I wipe the sweat zealously from my face.
She draws nearer.
I bend at the knees to bring us eye to eye.
And I grip her as she becomes meerly a thing that clings to me,
as I dance.
She hovers upon the floor moving everyway that I do. She has been staring at me forever. I do not know her.
As my thighs begin to ache I swing my hips lower, broader, slower, and move my legs faster. As I pretend that I'm comfortable, I wonder if she is fatigued at all. I will outlast her though. This has become a contest between us.
So we dance...

"I'm thirsty!" she yells over the music.
I wipe the sweat zealously from my face.

The Pathetic Prophet

He is always a waif.
His tongue is too slow to relate the great things he has witnessed,
in total darkness.
The knife-edge in his voice reflects the light of the sun upon his eyes glaring conviction.
Internal darkness.
He leans on his faith like a crutch that sets too high in the shoulder. He raves that the terrible truth is worse than all of our fears and better than the impossible.
He does not desire these girls; he has seen the Nephilim
woman bathing in the ocean.

I want to cut out his eyes because I know what this pathetic prophet fears despite his faith is
eternal darkness.

People in Coddingtown

They're all so gracelessly detached. A patchwork of greedy eyes and gorged bellies. They're all so pink I can hardly look at them.

...

His watch-face is bigger than his hand. I noticed from far away that it is silver.

...

Two women pass, both at least ten years older than I am. One has plain features with black and chrome shoes and fine clothes. The other exceeds beauty. And her clothes are as plain as her sisters face.

...

The woman in the ad poster wears only a T-shirt and appears ready to be penetrated from behind. The shirt must be very expensive. Her eyes are wide and vacant.

Reverie

It occurs to me, I've murdered you so many times in my mind you've become unreal to me.
An Abstract.
A Goddess.
An immortal Diane, whom I looked upon naked
and now
the dogs of myown bitterness bite at my heels.
I fear I will be rent and devoured.

You've been a cheap idol.

In a reverie I did the impossible and burned your temple to nothing.

Object of Desire

I noticed her because her feet never touched the floor.

Airs of a pose in motion.

Yellow flames engulf her face.

Eyes caress me with the soft blueness of knife-steel.

I grab her in my arms, as the winners greedy fingers snatch dollars up from the pooltable.

She is mine now.

Is she worth keeping?

The Wayfarer and a Woman in the Way

I was on my way, perfectly alone; avoiding the shade because the wind was starting to turn. I listened to the song made by the gentle percussion of the leaves flapping and clapping. As I cleared the nearest hill, where the way veers west, a cry pierced this fluttering song.

A woman lay in the way mournfully wailing. So I went sailing to the spot almost falling down the slope to the violently moaning woman. I stood frozen in horror for moments. She was holding tight her chest; on the left side and right below her shoulder. “Who did this to you? Who could have left you this way?”

It occurred to me that she was extraordinarily beautiful. Even as she wretched her face was docile and her wild glaring eyes widely implied a most unsaintly martyrdom. Offering her some of my water-flask I ask, “What happened to you?”

She winces and weakly squeals. “A wild animal came out from the woods and tore a piece out of me.” She lifted her hand and indeed, there was a part missing from her torso. I used my own shirt to dress the wound and gave her my jacket to wear.

“Come with me, I’ll take you on my back. You need help. You look like you’ve been here a week, dying slowly. I can take you out of these woods alive.”

She told me she was beyond saving.
She would for nothing survive.
She would for nothing, ever get up again.
She had conceded.

I left everything I had there with her. I left grudgingly, helplessly resenting the whole sentiment. Total disillusionment.

The Wayfarer Awakens

I awoke by the way, down in the high grass that covers this stripe of Earth. But everything seems wrong. The sun is surprisingly low in the west. My head pounds with dull waves of blunt pain. I have the hazy, partial recollection of a tumultuous last night. I walk to the way and sit on a fallen tree. I see on the tops of my hands, scabs and dried blood. There are purple bruises on my elbows. I am horrified.

I look back down the way, to the city, where I had been last night. The city is miles away now. I could not remember how I’ve gotten here but just grateful to be out of that wolves den. The people in the city had been starving for so long they would tear eachother apart in the streets. At this distance the governor’s tower compound stood the only visible part of the city against sprawling chaos.

When I went to dress and found my clothes spattered with blood, pity for the man whose blood it was overwhelms me. I can almost remember the narrow glare as the slits of his eyes stared at me. I can remember his face. I can remember drinking in the biggest bar I’ve seen; thinking I might have to murder this man without blinking. I remember hating him.

I went to my canteen to get some water and found I’d filled it with wine. The noxious tonic nauseated me, but it was all I had. I sat on my grey logbench drinking wine and eating bread and cheese and I nearly fell off when a tall, slender woman native to the province rose and stood in the tall grass exactly where I had. “Would you like some water?”

My head clears. I look up to the sun setting on the confused city. “No, but I still have some wine. Would you like some?”